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By WILL MANLY
Hays Daily News
Nex-Tech Wireless has announced a $15 million service upgrade and market expansion to take place in coming months.
Capital for the upgrade and expansion will come from a loan made by the Rural Telephone Finance Cooperative, a Herndon, Va., financing company, Nex-Tech Wireless announced in a press release.
Nex-Tech Wireless plans to improve its mobile broadband Internet service to create higher connection speeds. New mobile broadband technology will be installed on Nex-Tech Wireless' towers and will increase download speeds to as much as 3.1 megabytes per second, said Corrina Hudsonpillar, director of marketing for Nex-Tech Wireless.
Nex-Tech Wireless already provides broadband service for computers anywhere in range of a tower with a speed of 128K; the upgrade will improve this service.
"They can work anywhere, at a much faster speed," Hudsonpillar said. "They will definitely see a difference."
Present plans call for the upgrade to be finished by the end of November.
The company's market expansion will bring its service into Russell, Ellsworth and Lincoln counties. Current plans are for the expansion into the city of Russell and along Interstate 70 from Hays to the Saline County line to be completed in November.
Expansion into rural parts of Russell, Lincoln and Ellsworth counties is expected to be finished by March.
"You see a lot of TV advertisements talking about broadband speed. A lot of major cities have mobile broadband at this time. People like mobility," said Johnie Johnson, chief executive officer at Nex-Tech Wireless. "We've taken that to the next level. And we're taking that technology that's available in the major cities, the Kansas Cities and the Denvers, and we're making that available in a rural setting."
Those rural settings, Johnson said, include small communities that have been passed over by other Internet providers. Nex-Tech Wireless' business plan is to cover most central Kansas communities of at least 300 people.
"We're targeting those smaller communities, where they do not have good service now," he said. "Our strategy has been to cover people where they live, work and play."
Will Manly is a reporter for The Hays Daily News and The Stir. He can be reached at (785) 628-1081, Ext. 139, or by e-mail at
will@thestironline.com.
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